Cox South hospital shooting details cloudy

Police say real estate agent who killed himself had cancer, giving no details on wife's survival of Nov. 30 incident

Dec. 14, 2013

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Many details remain unclear about a double shooting inside a Cox South hospital room two weeks ago, but it’s now apparent the Branson real estate agent who died had cancer.

Police have called his death an apparent self-inflicted shooting, but police and other officials have not released information about how the man’s wife was shot. She survived.

Booker Cox Jr., 79, was pronounced dead at 10:09 p.m. Nov. 30, about an hour after police received reports of shots fired on the hospital’s ninth floor. His wife, Carolyn, 70, who was visiting him, also suffered gunshot wounds. No information has been released about her condition.

An online obituary posted by Greenlawn Funeral Homes said that Cox “passed away ... after a long battle with cancer.”

Police have said Carolyn Cox was shot in the chest but have not answered questions about who shot her, who owned the gun or how it was brought in the hospital. Her 70th birthday was Friday. The hospital prohibits people from bringing weapons into the hospital.

“The investigation is still ongoing, and we are not at a point in the investigation that we can release specific information related to evidence collected at the scene,” said police Capt. David Millsap.

Stacy Fender, a spokeswoman for Cox, said the hospital has reviewed what happened, along with inspectors from the Missouri Department of Health and The Joint Commission.

“All reviews found CoxHealth’s security measures and response to be thorough, immediate and appropriate,” Fender said. “Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the family and staff who were affected by these sad events.”

State and federal regulators have said that they are investigating because of the shooting but also have released few details.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has oversight responsibility for the security staff the hospital puts in place to protect patients and visitors.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore reviewed 11 years of shootings at hospitals and found that hospital-based shootings are difficult to prevent. Their study, published in September 2012 in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, said most of the shootings involved a “determined shooter.”

Common motives included a grudge or revenge, suicide and euthanizing an ill relative. The study identified 154 hospital-based shootings from 2000 to 2011.